John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

19. IV:45. Fresh blow the whole Night, with a most uneasy motion of the ship; and from the time of rising I perceived this was one of the days when I should be able to write only a few lines for the occurrences of yesterday; and having slept little in the Night, I was equally disqualified for reading. I passed therefore almost the whole day at the Chess Board— Before and after breakfast with John, and after dinner with Mr Otis, who has so much improved in his skill that he now again contends with me upon equal terms.— The boys bathed this Morning in a large hogshead of Sea Water which had been prepared for me.— The wind which varied no more than from W. to W.N.W. & W.S.W. kept us under reefed topsails all the Morning, and moderated in the afternoon without much abatement of the swell— A brig Eastward bound passed us very rapidly this Morning, and another within an hour after dinner— Our companion the Alexander was in sight the greatest part of the day. In the Evening there was thunder and lightening. Then a North East gale for half and hour and just before midnight a flat and sudden calm, leaving the ship to pitch, and roll as if her Masts would go over.— The Dead-Lights were at my request put in— The air this morning was at 67. Water 61. Latitude at Noon 42:57. Long 56:24. Our course had been about N.W. and we had got out of the range of the gulph stream early this Morning, as appeared by the coldness of the Water.— The wind itself was cold all this day.— Among the omissions of my journal on the 4th: of June, were some of the observations which I made at the Borough Lancaster school, and at Bedlam Hospital. The system of the school appears to me excellent as a saving both of time and expence. It rivets constantly and necessarily the attention of pupils, and teaches in two years as much as is usually learnt in five. It teaches them also to read and write; all very nearly equally well; it multiplies and extends the means of obtaining elementary education, in a surprizing manner and I have no doubt it communicates any given portion of Instruction, at less than one tenth part of the former cost. There are two candidates for the honour of this invention. Joseph Lancaster, a Quaker, and Dr Bell a Clergyman of the Church of England, who first introduced it in a public school at Madras in India. The two systems without being precisely the same are so nearly alike, that there has been a sharp controversy; on the question which took the idea from the other. It would seem that it occurred to them both without communication with each other— But in England the Churchmen took the alarm, because the English Church service was not taught, together with reading and writing. They sat up therefore, a number of Schools on the system of Dr Bell, in which they teach the liturgy with the alphabet, and put down Church and King, in company with joint hand-writing, into the minds of the pupils. These Schools are patronised with profuse liberality by the noble and the wealthy, while the Quaker-Schools are left to struggle along with very little assistance, and upon their own Merits— The 227Queen and Prince Regent however have made small subscriptions to them; and nominally to patronize them and the Duke of Kent has promised them a thousand Pounds, when he has them to give. Lancaster himself has become bankrupt and forfeited his character by dishonesty, so that the school has been taken from him, and he is now a sort of vagabond. It is the fashion in England to say that the management of the Bell or as they call it the National school is better than that of the School for all; as the Quakers call their’s because they receive pupils of all religious denominations, while the National school teaches only children of the established Church. I have not seen the National school, and therefore am not competent to compare them together. The difference between them is however admitted to be of little importance. The system I was informed has been introduced at New-York; and it appears to be so well adapted to the management of the town Schools in Boston, that I should wish to see it introduced there.— On my visit to Bedlam Hospital, I was gratified to find more cleanliness and order, and fewer violent patients than in any similar institution that I had ever seen before. There was a great and manifest improvement in the Hospital upon what I had seen there in 1783. There are now no raging Patients— The Duke of Sussex however remarked at one place that the construction of the door to some of the cells, that they might be used for suicide— Upon which Dr Munro spoke of the constant, unremitting attention they were obliged to pay, in order to prevent that act, by many of the patients.— The Duke called for some of the bread and cheese and Beer like that in common use for the house; which we tasted, and found very good. One of the Patients however complained of the fare; and said it was not so good as in Newgate.— Mackenroth who is a German, had books and materials for writing in his apartment; and appeared tranquil, and conversed rationally with the Duke, Margaret Nicholson, who is now 80 years old had no appearance of madness, but did not utter a word— But there was with her an old Negro woman whose tongue ran without ceasing. She told the Duke she knew him very well; he was the Lord Mayor— There was one general circumstance which I thought yet left room for improvement. Not one of all these wretched persons was occupied— On one table we saw an old pack of Cards with which some of them appeared to have been playing: but most of them were walking to and fro in the long Entries, each in solitude, without any thing to excite his interest or attention— Whether it would be possible to employ them I cannot say, but in the state of total idleness, with confinement for life in which they are kept, it is not surprizing that they should need so many precautions to preserve them, from the violence of their own hands.